But seriously, it does affect me too. It doesn't help that I don't get out or see my friends much and most of my online friends are from the other side of the Atlantic with me bring in the UK (although I do play a lot with a Finnish guy who must have even worse sleep patterns than me!). I usually go a couple of weeks with 3 or 4 hours sleep a night and then spent pretty much a full day in bed!

It's not the best healthiest way to live, but gaming is pretty much the only thing I am able to do that I enjoy and also, other than my customers just about the only human interaction I have.

mac_d wrote:

I've always had a lot of issues getting to sleep, staying asleep and on rare occassions - waking up. I honestly feel that my brain thinks a day should be 30 or so hours long. If I'm up for about 24 hours straight, I can usually get a solid 6 (+- 1) hours of sleep in. I've got a few other issues that feed into that too. Generally, I spend every day in a miserable position of being just a bit too tired but then come home and generally can't sleep until the small hours of the morning. I cannot even recall the last time I felt well rested. Not helped by the fact I have some tinnitus and medications I am on made it much worse. Hard to sleep with bad tinnitus. I now pretty much require some kind of background - usually an audiobook or a STEM lecture (not because they are boring, I find them interesting and it makes me feel less like the time waiting to get to sleep isn't wasted).

I started playing videogames in 1996 just after I turned 8. It's been, essentially, my primary hobby for most of that time. Maybe that is the cause of my sleep issues. I don't know. I have this really irritating thing where I can feel dog tired, I go to my bed, and then I'll just not be tired anymore. I have to be pretty exhausted to sleep. Whenever I've been away on trips with my friends, I'm usually last one up and one of the first ones up the next morning. Last girlfriend I had found it irritating. She also told me that I frequently would wake up and say something to someone then go back to sleep. I sometimes have nightmares but I've been told that I thrash around a lot while having them, often saying stuff too. So yeah, I play a lot of games and I have a lot of sleep issues. Probably impossible to say if they are linked though.

huggybear wrote:

I only really play on Friday evenings and Saturdays. I find that I sleep better, but that's largely because I have awful sleep patterns during the week as I have to get up at 5am to get to work across London. Gaming relaxes me. I'm used to the whole blue light not making you sleep thing, so I don't notice it that much.

Ok, so I better continue to avoid midweek gaming. I was hoping there would be a magical cure, turns out you're all just even worse that sleeping them I am!

I tend to only play my PS4 when I have a lot of spare time and at the weekend. I have the odd hour here and there during the week, but I find an hour gameplay at night (for example) means I still can't sleep even if I switch the b*stard thing off an hour before going to bed. I'm generally quite poor at sleeping regardless, but this doesn't help. It's not purely the screen as I can watch football (as long as it doesn't involve the emotions of my own team being involved) and go to bed 15 minutes later.

Do you have this issue? Do you just deal with the lack of sleep?

I've never had a problem going to sleep after gaming, and I play most nights. The trick is to stop at least 30 mins before you go to bed and do something that doesn't involve looking at a screen, mostly things like a tablet or phone, TV for me seems to be fine however as it's less interactive. If you are gaming on a PC one thing to keep in mind is that most computer monitors are set by default to be way way too bright, like seriously too bright. If you are really having problems, turn the brightness of your monitor down, it may look dark at first but you will be surprised at how quickly your eyes will adjust and you will strain your eyes less.

Day off to play Mass Effect: Andromeda. Have tomorrow off too. My best mate has a half day today and tomorrow for the same reason.

It seems like Xbox servers are having a nuke at the moment. I've been kicked from all 9 games I've tried to play. None of the experience or credits are kept, and worse I've used up all the XP bosters I got for preordering.

Enjoying the single player, though barely scratched the surface as yet.

Day off to play Mass Effect: Andromeda. Have tomorrow off too. My best mate has a half day today and tomorrow for the same reason.

It seems like Xbox servers are having a nuke at the moment. I've been kicked from all 9 games I've tried to play. None of the experience or credits are kept, and worse I've used up all the XP bosters I got for preordering.

Enjoying the single player, though barely scratched the surface as yet.

i have played about 6 or 7 hours and i am having a blast its a tonne of fun imo

I tend to only play my PS4 when I have a lot of spare time and at the weekend. I have the odd hour here and there during the week, but I find an hour gameplay at night (for example) means I still can't sleep even if I switch the b*stard thing off an hour before going to bed. I'm generally quite poor at sleeping regardless, but this doesn't help. It's not purely the screen as I can watch football (as long as it doesn't involve the emotions of my own team being involved) and go to bed 15 minutes later.

Do you have this issue? Do you just deal with the lack of sleep?

I've never had a problem going to sleep after gaming, and I play most nights. The trick is to stop at least 30 mins before you go to bed and do something that doesn't involve looking at a screen, mostly things like a tablet or phone, TV for me seems to be fine however as it's less interactive. If you are gaming on a PC one thing to keep in mind is that most computer monitors are set by default to be way way too bright, like seriously too bright. If you are really having problems, turn the brightness of your monitor down, it may look dark at first but you will be surprised at how quickly your eyes will adjust and you will strain your eyes less.

There's a program called fl.ux that automatically adjusts blue light level and screen brightness during light and dark hours which helps a lot.

I tend to only play my PS4 when I have a lot of spare time and at the weekend. I have the odd hour here and there during the week, but I find an hour gameplay at night (for example) means I still can't sleep even if I switch the b*stard thing off an hour before going to bed. I'm generally quite poor at sleeping regardless, but this doesn't help. It's not purely the screen as I can watch football (as long as it doesn't involve the emotions of my own team being involved) and go to bed 15 minutes later.

Do you have this issue? Do you just deal with the lack of sleep?

I've never had a problem going to sleep after gaming, and I play most nights. The trick is to stop at least 30 mins before you go to bed and do something that doesn't involve looking at a screen, mostly things like a tablet or phone, TV for me seems to be fine however as it's less interactive. If you are gaming on a PC one thing to keep in mind is that most computer monitors are set by default to be way way too bright, like seriously too bright. If you are really having problems, turn the brightness of your monitor down, it may look dark at first but you will be surprised at how quickly your eyes will adjust and you will strain your eyes less.

There's a program called fl.ux that automatically adjusts blue light level and screen brightness during light and dark hours which helps a lot.

Enjoying Mass Effect: Andromeda. Haven't sunk my teeth into the single player too much yet. Played a fair chunk of the multiplayer. Reunited with my old team of 3 and been tearing it up. We've already managed Silver extractions as a common occurence which I'm pretty happy with. Ended up playing as the Krogan Vanguard who remains pretty broken.

Single player I'm at the first planet after you get the galaxy map. Will get stuck into it a bit tomorrow but since all 3 of us were free, multiplayer beckoned.

I've been playing No Man's Sky a fair amount recently. I'm enjoying it a lot. I love that it's all so pointless, and doesn't force you to do things. I've spent hours just mining rare minerals and carving out caves to stay in to escape radioactive atmospheres. It's glorious.

I'm waiting at least 1 month after ME:A comes out so they can fix all the inevitable bugs that all games have on release these days, that way I can have a nice clean run through. It will also give me a chance to read reviews to see if it's worth buying at retail price or on a sale, just need to try and avoid the spoilers.

I've just finished playing Dragon Age: Origins for the first time, and in other news Morrigan is now one of my favorite video game characters.

Unfortunately, I have to say this is the right thing to do. I got ME2 and ME3 at release and they were perfectly fine games. This isn't.

Whatever potato they are using as a server has been pretty awful. I've probably been kicked from games due to dropping connection at least 30 times in the last week and a bit. It's very irritating.

Single player.Load load time.You can't save whenever you want. This is a *inaudible* in missions. Last night I did about 15 minutes of fighting that had 2 or 3 lulls in combat. No checkpoint, no save. Very annoying.I've had a fair few softlocks. Cutscenes won't play and you are just frozen. This also happens when you try and talk to your team mates about your ship sometimes.Remember the first 3 games where you go to a system and you can go to each planet (not landing but for scanning etc) without it needing to load or do a cutscene? Cutscene every time. Short, yes, but irritating.Some mission flags just go a bit mental. Talk to this person - I go talk - they have nothing to say.Peebee has a cutscene where she holds her gun the wrong way.I've had characters stuck in walls.I've had doors on the ship lock me in forcing a reset.The facial animations, especially on FemRyder are horrific.The hair in the game looks awful. Very minor but irritating.Character customisation is so limited I wonder why they bothered.

I mean, it's all small stuff but it's a lot of small stuff. The softlocks, lack of saves in missions and long load times all kinda combine to be very annoying. Further, I almost feel like they polished the very early game a bit more than any other section so folks that played the demo wouldn't see some of the issues. Maybe that's paranoid but it feels a little deceptive.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2017. For a while now the series has trailed behind FIFA as the game to have, but the latest edition is fantastic.It feels like an actual game of football, as opposed to the glitz of FIFA that feels like a Sky Sports promo whenever you play. Ball weight, defensive AI, shooting, are all far far better. The pace is a lot slower and it promotes proper attack building. Most interesting though is how the elite players are not ridiculously overpowered like they are on FIFA. They're better, sure, but you can't just kick it to your best player and go on a mazy run through 9 players like FIFA (which is my major complaint about the EA game). I'm loving it.

Also bought Horizon Zero Dawn on Thursday. Game mechanics are pretty standard for the open world action semi RPG game (think Tomb Raider), and it borrows a lot from Skyrim too, but the story, the setting, and just the general feel are superb. It's like a robot Jurassic Park RPG, and is so much fun to play.

It's a good game. I'm not sure it's a great game. The first patch is out an mitigates some of the bugs and issues but some still persist.

The open world aspect differs greatly from what made ME2 and ME3 so great. I suppose it's a little more like ME than 2 or 3 in that sense. The open world bits though, I found them pretty boring and repetitive whereas I really enjoyed Dragon Age: Inqusition which had a similar open world thing going on. Further, I felt this game lacked in actual missions like ME2 and 3 had. I think many folk will generally try and get 100% in an area then move on, I did this and so basically I had like 40 hours of very little plot development, then 10 hours at the end where all the character missions and the end of the main plot happened.

I felt it lacked character depth. I really feel like there should have been more triggers and more dialogue with your crew. Again, Bioware made the human characters really boring. Might just be me, but I wasn't a fan of Kaiden or Ashley in ME. In ME2 we had Jacob (my least favourite ME squadmate) and Zaeed (who I didn't care for) on one side, Kasumi who lacked any real interactions outside her mission in the middle, and Miri I thought was a good enough character. ME3 forced Vega (my 2nd least favourite ME squadmate) onto us. His movie was crap too. I did like most of the non-humans though.

The removal of the powerwheel seems to have split the fanbase. I liked the tactical aspect of having control over what your team mates do. I played the game on Insanity, as I had done Insanity on ME-ME3, and not having access to this basically made me feel like I just had two placeholders with me. In ME3, playing as a soldier, I always wanted someone with overload for shielded enemies (i.e Garrus, the best bro in the universe). In this, I could just get overload for myself and my team mates basically just served as a distraction. I think this was a significant deviation away from one of the mechanics I really enjoyed.

I really dislike that AI is so core to the story. Given how generally bad AI was seen as being in the trilogy (EDI excepted), having such a large project that wasn't secret (EDI was secret, and hid herself between ME2 and ME3 also) have an AI system in it seems like you'd have had C-sec or the like all over you. Also, the quarians have an ark. That ark must have AI aboard. I cannot possibly see how that would have happened in universe. They needed AI to make the ME:A story work, but I just think it seems stupid in the wider context.

I could go on, but I doubt anyone really cares about the minutia. For me, the original trilogy would all be rated between 8.5-9.5. This game is a 7.5. Without all the bugs, maybe an 8 on my scale. I expected more from the game. Whether the game falls short or my expectations were too high is another issue.

I've recently started playing through Fallout 3, plan to play through New Vegas too once I'm done, so much crossover from 3 to 4 that I hadn't realised.

The Institute, Synths, The Railroad, MacCready, Maxon, Dr Li and The Mechanist all introduced in Fallout 3 - I honestly didn't pick up on any of them when first playing through 4. Makes me wonder if anyone/anything mentioned in 4 will feature in 5?

I've recently started playing through Fallout 3, plan to play through New Vegas too once I'm done, so much crossover from 3 to 4 that I hadn't realised.

The Institute, Synths, The Railroad, MacCready, Maxon, Dr Li and The Mechanist all introduced in Fallout 3 - I honestly didn't pick up on any of them when first playing through 4. Makes me wonder if anyone/anything mentioned in 4 will feature in 5?

I just hope I've finally made some headway in 4 before they release 5!

It's now at the stage I'm hoping my wife goes out for the day/night and I get left in the house alone, so I can ignore the outside world and feed my addiction.

I'd never touched a Fallout game before this one. I'm glad, as I'd be happily single & unemployed.

I've recently started playing through Fallout 3, plan to play through New Vegas too once I'm done, so much crossover from 3 to 4 that I hadn't realised.

The Institute, Synths, The Railroad, MacCready, Maxon, Dr Li and The Mechanist all introduced in Fallout 3 - I honestly didn't pick up on any of them when first playing through 4. Makes me wonder if anyone/anything mentioned in 4 will feature in 5?

I just hope I've finally made some headway in 4 before they release 5!

It's now at the stage I'm hoping my wife goes out for the day/night and I get left in the house alone, so I can ignore the outside world and feed my addiction.

I'd never touched a Fallout game before this one. I'm glad, as I'd be happily single & unemployed.

Yeah they're really addictive, I've always found Bethesda games a little hard to get into at first but then once you get a little into the story you're hooked.

I'd fully recommend playing 3 and New Vegas if you ever see them for a cheap price, the game mechanics and graphics are outdated as you would expect but they're really enjoyable games still.

I'd fully recommend playing 3 and New Vegas if you ever see them for a cheap price, the game mechanics and graphics are outdated as you would expect but they're really enjoyable games still.

I'd second this suggestion. If you do decide to get them, GOTY editions for Bethesda games come with an install disk for the DLC rather than a one time download code (for Xbox at least, not sure about playstation or PC). Fallout 3 was great but New Vegas improves in many ways. The wacky wasteland perk, which makes some more goofy crap appear in game lets new game plus have a bit more variety. Plus, you get a shorter story but the branches are more unique. I really enjoyed New Vegas and would be happy if Bethesda handed Obsidian the engine etc and got them to make a Fallout 4.5 type game.

Fallout 4 was pretty great. I've yet to play the DLC packs. I spent a lot of my initial run just building settlements. One mod I'd like, but couldn't find would have been just to have a large flat area with no junk to build in. I also wish they let you re-skin Dogmeat. I'd have liked a dalmatian. Probably a mod for that.

I'd fully recommend playing 3 and New Vegas if you ever see them for a cheap price, the game mechanics and graphics are outdated as you would expect but they're really enjoyable games still.

I'd second this suggestion. If you do decide to get them, GOTY editions for Bethesda games come with an install disk for the DLC rather than a one time download code (for Xbox at least, not sure about playstation or PC). Fallout 3 was great but New Vegas improves in many ways. The wacky wasteland perk, which makes some more goofy crap appear in game lets new game plus have a bit more variety. Plus, you get a shorter story but the branches are more unique. I really enjoyed New Vegas and would be happy if Bethesda handed Obsidian the engine etc and got them to make a Fallout 4.5 type game.

Fallout 4 was pretty great. I've yet to play the DLC packs. I spent a lot of my initial run just building settlements. One mod I'd like, but couldn't find would have been just to have a large flat area with no junk to build in. I also wish they let you re-skin Dogmeat. I'd have liked a dalmatian. Probably a mod for that.

I'll get to it one day

I think I'll rip the *rse out of Fallout 4, then move on to all the DLCs, then once I'm fully divorced shift in to 3/New Vegas (providing 5 isn't out yet )

I'm a very slow player, I think I average one night per week when I have the time to play any games. This effectively means I'm always at least a couple years behind everyone else and that I have to choose very carefully what I play, so I most often end up playing the "big" games and only after most of the bugs have been ironed out.

Right now I'm (slowly) working through Witcher 3 (which is awesome BTW) and I estimate that I'll start playing Fallout 4 next year. Maybe in two year's time I'll get my hands on the Mass Effect: Andromeda.

I'm a very slow player, I think I average one night per week when I have the time to play any games. This effectively means I'm always at least a couple years behind everyone else and that I have to choose very carefully what I play, so I most often end up playing the "big" games and only after most of the bugs have been ironed out.

Right now I'm (slowly) working through Witcher 3 (which is awesome BTW) and I estimate that I'll start playing Fallout 4 next year. Maybe in two year's time I'll get my hands on the Mass Effect: Andromeda.

I would make a very irrelevant game reviewer

If you are enjoying the Witcher 3 then I highly recommend the DLC, especially Blood & Wine.

I'm a very slow player, I think I average one night per week when I have the time to play any games. This effectively means I'm always at least a couple years behind everyone else and that I have to choose very carefully what I play, so I most often end up playing the "big" games and only after most of the bugs have been ironed out.

Right now I'm (slowly) working through Witcher 3 (which is awesome BTW) and I estimate that I'll start playing Fallout 4 next year. Maybe in two year's time I'll get my hands on the Mass Effect: Andromeda.

I would make a very irrelevant game reviewer

If you are enjoying the Witcher 3 then I highly recommend the DLC, especially Blood & Wine.

I'm a very slow player, I think I average one night per week when I have the time to play any games. This effectively means I'm always at least a couple years behind everyone else and that I have to choose very carefully what I play, so I most often end up playing the "big" games and only after most of the bugs have been ironed out.

Right now I'm (slowly) working through Witcher 3 (which is awesome BTW) and I estimate that I'll start playing Fallout 4 next year. Maybe in two year's time I'll get my hands on the Mass Effect: Andromeda.

I would make a very irrelevant game reviewer

If you are enjoying the Witcher 3 then I highly recommend the DLC, especially Blood & Wine.

Thanks I have it but am still working through the main story!

Play the Hearts of Stone DLC when you reach a high enough level to start it, it will unlock some new items and crafting materials that you can continue to use throughout the rest of the game, plus some dialog and choices make more sense if you haven't gone too far into the main story. Blood & Wine however I recommend starting that when you finish the main game, as the story takes place after the events of the main game and the ending of Blood & Wine is the ending of The Witcher 3.

I'm a very slow player, I think I average one night per week when I have the time to play any games. This effectively means I'm always at least a couple years behind everyone else and that I have to choose very carefully what I play, so I most often end up playing the "big" games and only after most of the bugs have been ironed out.

Right now I'm (slowly) working through Witcher 3 (which is awesome BTW) and I estimate that I'll start playing Fallout 4 next year. Maybe in two year's time I'll get my hands on the Mass Effect: Andromeda.

I would make a very irrelevant game reviewer

If you are enjoying the Witcher 3 then I highly recommend the DLC, especially Blood & Wine.

Thanks I have it but am still working through the main story!

Play the Hearts of Stone DLC when you reach a high enough level to start it, it will unlock some new items and crafting materials that you can continue to use throughout the rest of the game, plus some dialog and choices make more sense if you haven't gone too far into the main story. Blood & Wine however I recommend starting that when you finish the main game, as the story takes place after the events of the main game and the ending of Blood & Wine is the ending of The Witcher 3.

Replayed Darksiders recently. Great game. It's much like a Zelda game, except more emphasis on combat (certainly than TP or before anyway) for those who don't recall it. I played it once years ago but for some reason seeing it on my Xbone BC list made me want to play it again. Enjoyed it a lot again. Some really good puzzles, combat is fun and I really think the game has a fantastic plot. I have Darksiders 2 on my Xbone from sometime when it was a free download, so I think I'll need to start that. I never played it on 360. Be interesting to see if Death is as cool a character as War was. The games focus heavily on the heroes of heaven, hell and the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. I feel it could have done with explaining a couple of things. Firstly, is God kicking about? Secondly, the strong characters are strong for what reasons? Is it just magic, or age or were these powers gifted from an all powerful leader on each side (God/Devil types). Hopefully 2 delves a little deeper into the mythos and backstory. Anyway, had a blast replaying this. Don't know if it did well critically or comercially but I'd consider it a bit of a forgotten gem.

Been going loco in the Hot Wheels expansion for Forza Horizon 3 this week... love the base game, but having an absolute blast with the new expansion. Crazy races, insane new cars and some awesome in game photo oppotunities

There's a massive backwards compatibility sale in xbox at the moment. I won't list it all cause there's possibly 100's of games on there. It's all in the xbox store and some good deals too.

Thanks I'll have a look

So Ubisoft are teasing a new Assassins Creed (not too fussed, been unimpressed with the last couple) and Far Cry 5. Now rumours are that Far Cry 5 will be a western and I have to say I'd be very excited for that, I enjoy the Far Cry mechanics and would love a good 1st person western shooter.

With Red Dead Redemption 2 coming out later this year too I'm getting excited for some new games. F1 2017 should only be a few months away now as well!

Finally my buddy decided he wants to play Borderlands 2. It's BC on Xbone so I already had it. I love me some Borderlands. The humour is spot on for my taste. I got a good laugh out of the Top Gun and Ninja Turtle references when we were playing tonight. I'm also really looking forward to replay Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC. This DLC was fantastically well done. It's great fun, it's funny but it also has a fantastic story overall and the framing device of the D&D game works really well. This has to be one of my top 10 DLC packs worth playing (not a varied list, most of it would be Mass Effect DLC).

Also picked up Forza 5 when it was £6 recently. Enjoying it. Kinda thinking I might sack it and go back to project cars though. I do like that the AI in my game has the gamertags of those of you guys that have played this. Makes it feel a bit more like a competition, even though it isn't actually.

I really didn't enjoy forza 5. There just wasn't the track selection of other forza games and I got bored fairly quickly with it.

I still think that 2 was the beat forza game. Simple and detailed multiplayer lobbies, rewards for in game progression and no stupid micro translations so people with more money than sense can't just buy a better car than one you worked hours to get (which also made the auction house work better imo too). The only thing missing in 2 was a behind-the-wheel view.

_________________There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals that Chuck Norris allows to live.

FM6 is the same... though there's no Auction House (Which FH3 has and has been absolutely ruined by a selection of users). The only real issue I have with it is the same thing for just about all online games.... the utter lunatics and trolls that are in the online lobbies, sometimes they can be bad enough I have to walk away.

FH3 is both miles better and not as good... graphically it's insane, some jaw dropping stuff (and that's before the two Expansion packs), But... they've lost a number of cars as they didn't get the license from VW this time out.

Finally my buddy decided he wants to play Borderlands 2. It's BC on Xbone so I already had it. I love me some Borderlands. The humour is spot on for my taste. I got a good laugh out of the Top Gun and Ninja Turtle references when we were playing tonight. I'm also really looking forward to replay Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC. This DLC was fantastically well done. It's great fun, it's funny but it also has a fantastic story overall and the framing device of the D&D game works really well. This has to be one of my top 10 DLC packs worth playing (not a varied list, most of it would be Mass Effect DLC).

Also picked up Forza 5 when it was £6 recently. Enjoying it. Kinda thinking I might sack it and go back to project cars though. I do like that the AI in my game has the gamertags of those of you guys that have played this. Makes it feel a bit more like a competition, even though it isn't actually.

Borderlands 2 and its DLC was incredible. My gf and I spent days playing B1 and we've likely put the same again into 2 (less so for Pre-sequel. Different studio, wasn't as good)Hoping for an announce of 3 this year @ E3. Modern gaming still needs couch co-op games.

Forza 6 is worth picking up if you can. A more complete game IMO with more cars and still plenty of people playing online - your ability/playtime plays a part in who you'll be matched against which helps keep the matches fairer - Though there's still plenty of people who haven't learned how to deal with first corners...

If you're enjoying PC1, you should definitely keep an eye out for Project CARS 2, it's already LIGHT years ahead of PC1 from what I've played/seen so far - and I enjoyed 1.

There was a time when we were talking about Mass Effect everyday. HAs anyone played ME Andromeda, any good?

Well, I'll say this first - the version I played is likely somewhat inferior to whatever version you will play. I also adore the original trilogy, despite the many flaws present over the three games.

I didn't much care for Andromeda. [*]I found the game badly paced - I tend to be a guy who opens an area, completes everything they can, goes to next area so when I'm done I've done a lot of the content. This game I felt I ended up with a situation where I had a long, long slog through the more trivial content then all the plot content came in one big chunk at the end. Maybe this is my fault but I didn't feel that was the case in Dragon Age: Inquisition which is a similar game in style. [*]The plot was rather uninteresting. [*]The core human characters fell into the trap of mostly being really boring. A lot of the minor characters just did nothing for me. [*]When I played, facial animations were awful (worse than ME3 - which was several years and a console generation earlier). The customisation options for your character creation were ridiculously limited... to the point where I really felt they'd have been better to just scrap it since been improved by patching). [*]I had some fundamental problems with the concept of a large scale organisation using AI. Did the writers of this game play/read the script of the ME trilogy and not get the perceived valid reasons why AI is banned. I found it a major thing to be honest, your mileage may vary. [*]The game had a terrible save/load system quite often (possibly patched). ME3 generally if you cleared a room or area, you can save. [*]The game had plenty of bugs in the version I played - *say it with me* probably patched now. The game had some good missions which were the way you'd play an ME3 mission. Land in an area then generally clearing rooms (or areas in a cave etc - basically a room still I suppose) with a story being told and set-pieces and well designed enemy typing and placement. The missions like that in ME3 are really good I think. The open world bits I just found a little boring. A lot boring perhaps. Again I compare to Dragon Age: Inquisition which had a similar style but I felt was much more entertaining in it's delivery. Basically, large chunks of the game weren't that fun.[*] Many of the times where the game puts a decision on you felt to me like they had no payoff whatsoever. Just seemed odd to me to feel like they are setting something up then they don't. Also might be a case that if I replayed and made the opposite decisions things would change and this game is just a bit subtle about it all.

Multiplayer is a bit of a weird one. For a brief time I thought it was an improvement and I'd want to play this game as my online game like I played ME3 MP for months. For some reason I'm not that into it. They released with 5 maps which was a stupid move. Yes, ME3 released with 5 maps and those maps needed improving to be good maps. But ME3 had MP as a bit of an experiment and they couldn't know if it would be a success. I like the shorter matches in ME:A for Bronze (~10-12 mins, 6 waves then extraction wave). However, part of me also liked ME3 building up the enemy force so wave 10 was always a blast. I think at least they should have kept that for Gold. I also think they could have been well served by taking the style of DA:I's MP and incorporating that. I'm not saying instead of the default arena-shooty-killy gameplay, but aswell. Maybe I underestimate the time and effort required but I'd have liked it. Actually, the map I played earlier that is one that has just been added was somewhat like this. I also think they should have added a pure wave survival mode. Some objective waves but keep having it send a tougher combo of enemies until you pop it. They've cured the absolute worst aspect of the MP though, the number of disconnects was a considerable irritation in the early days after release. Getting 8 minutes into a 10 minute game then being kicked to the main menu on a large amount of games just annoyed me. This has been fixed, but I do think it permanently soured me.

My honest opinion on ME:A - it tiddled me off. I feel it was a clearly unfinished game. This game should have had an extra 3 or 6 months before release to polish, play-test and improve. Yet again, a big videogame company decides that it needs to be out on a set date for stockholders or because marketing materials have been made. We'll patch it later. And now they've seriously hurt the franchise and it's "on ice" for now. I knew I should have waited after playing the demo, but the heart over-ruled my head. I really think if I played it now for the first time I would likely enjoy the game considerable more. And, incase anyone thinks me saying this game is inferior to ME3 is nostalgia goggles or the like, I have replayed ME3 twice since finishing ME:A. I have no intention of replaying ME:A in the near future, and might not at all.

tl;dr version - It's an okay game. It depends on how you like the open world aspect. In my opinion, if you want a good sci-fi RPG... play ME2 and 3 (I love ME too, but I prefer the gameplay changes they made into 2 to make it more shootery).

I've been playing Injustice 2 so much recently (14 hours game time in 4 weeks). It's just a superb fighting game, with lots of replay value. Each superhero has a character power that you can use to help you win fights, and Netherrealm have done a good job of making them fit the characters. Bane for instance can use his venom injector to give himself greatly enhanced strength for a small amount of time (and when it runs out, you are basically a sitting duck).Where it really shines is the Multiverse and the Gear system. They've added an rpg element to it, and each character has changeable outfits that change their HP, strength, defence, and strength of their specific superhero power. Each character can have different heads, arms, legs, torsos, and weapons (Catwoman has different whips, Wonder Woman different shields etc). There are hundreds of different combinations for each character, and some bits only unlock once your character reaches a certain level.To level up, you fight in the Multiverse, which chucks you into the DC Comics different earths, to fight different versions of the DC characters, so there is a decent amount of variety in the fights you have to have.They've also added in the option to change the colours of your characters costumes, which doesn't do much, but it's a nice touch. If you want your Robin to be Dick Grayson themed, he can be. If you want the Red Robin, you can. If you want Nightwing, you can. It also allows for them to be different characters. Green Lantern has Hal Jordan and John Stewart as options. Flash can be Barry Allen, Jay Garrick, or Hunter Zolomon. Supergirl can be Power Girl, Cyborg can be GRID, Cheetah can be Vixen, and Captain Cold can be Mr Freeze.